Lots of film genres look outward. Horror, in particular, scares us by focusing on the ‘other’. The stranger at the door of the cabin. The backwater town with its backwards customs. The supernatural force from another dimension.
David Cronenberg shows us that real fear comes from within. In his films, the body rebels. It works because it reflects real life. We aren’t in control of our own biology. When we see this onscreen, it’s disgusting and poignant.
We have Cronenberg to thank for the rise of the body horror genre. Other directors adopted it, but he popularized it. And while body horror looks inward and shows us how fragile we are, that’s not all it can do. Cronenberg is a master of tackling big themes in his own, visceral way. Sexuality, technology, and identity all get filtered through the lens of misbehaving flesh.
If you’ve dismissed body horror as gross-out schlock, or you’re new to Cronenberg’s work, don’t go anywhere. I’m about to explain what makes his movies so compelling and relevant, even today.
Brutal Technology
Cronenberg uses body horror to comment on our relationship with technology. We see it as a civilizing force, but in his films, it has the opposite effect.
The plot of Shivers (1975), his first film to make a splash in the mainstream, highlights this. It centers on an artificial parasite that makes infected people commit violent sexual assaults. They Came From Within, an alternative title, makes the film’s point bluntly. Science and progress can turn us back into animals. More than that, we want this to happen, and are powerless to stop it.
Perhaps surprisingly, public funding provided the launchpad for Cronenberg’s subversive career. Stereo (1969) and Crimes of the Future (1970) received funding from Canada Council and the Canadian Film Development Corporation, respectively. Shivers also benefited from significant CFDC investment. This shows aspiring indie filmmakers that public funding can turn even their most out-there ideas into actual projects.
Sex, violence, and technology also take the spotlight in Videodrome (1983). It imagines a world where torture and murder are broadcast to living rooms nationally. The broadcasts cause brain tumors, hallucinations, and mental breakdown. It turns out that this is a deliberate plot to kill society’s most sex and violence-obsessed members. Soon, we see flesh and technology merged. “Long live the new flesh” is the film’s refrain. But first, the old body must die.
The Fly (1986) plays a similar tune. A scientist cracks teleportation technology. When he uses it, he becomes more powerful, physically and sexually. He thinks this is due to technology purifying his body. In truth, he’s slowly turning into a housefly-human hybrid. At the film’s climax, human and animal meld with technology in the most gruesome way. It’s another birth of a new, brutal era. And again, it might disgust us, but we want this.
Cronenberg also proved that there’s commercial potential in his out-there ideas. The Fly made $60 million on a $9 million budget. He talks about straddling the line between Hollywood money-making movies and European art cinema in this interview:
The Violent Body
Cronenberg’s filmmaking career took off against a backdrop of the growing threat of global nuclear war. The themes he covers and the directing style he adopts echo that. The body can absorb weapons, produce weapons, and be its own weapon.
Scanners (1981) takes this to the extreme. A pregnancy drug weaponizes the human mind in the womb. Telepathic powers lead to exploding heads. Even computer systems are controlled by the power of thought alone. In the end, we learn that the mind can transcend the body. Like Videodrome, new flesh replaces old.
Scanners also had an interesting journey to the screen from a practical perspective. Production began before a script existed in order to take advantage of government tax breaks. The $4.1 million budget clashed with the scope of the story and the ambitious effects. The famous head exploding scene came about through trial and error. Explosives didn’t give the right look. In the end, they blasted the prosthetic with a shotgun.
Cronenberg learnt from the troubled production of Scanners. But today’s filmmakers can take inspiration from the chaos that birthed it. Sometimes, an improvised solution to a budgetary and practical effects problem results in an iconic cinematic moment.
The Personal Touch
Cronenberg’s approach is much more affecting than a typical horror with typical weapons. Guns and knives create a degree of separation. Michael Myers stabbing someone with a kitchen knife keeps the monster at a distance. At least he isn’t penetrating us directly. So when the body is the weapon, the intimacy repels us. Or at least, it should.
Crash (1996) again finds Cronenberg daring us to test our limits. Flesh and machines form the basis of a deadly fetish. Car crash trauma provides the only sexual fulfilment in a jaded modern world. In it, cult leader Vaughn doesn’t mince his words. Like Cronenberg, he’s obsessed with how human bodies and technology combine. The car crash forms the ultimate expression of this.
Like The Fly, Crash turned controversy into cash. It made $23 million on an $8 million budget. The fact that Cronenberg still made low-cost films this deep into his career shows where his interests lie. He’d rather work on a shoestring and preserve his vision than sell out and make sacrifices.
Later on, we see Cronenberg’s interest in bodily trauma as a bonding experience in his other films. Neo-noir thriller A History of Violence (2005) pits small-town diner owner Tom Stall against dangerous criminals. His own violent past comes to light, driving a wedge between Stall and his family. His wife, Edie, experiences shock and disgust upon learning he was once a notorious mob hitman. The tension culminates with violence, then sex. This solves nothing. It’s life’s meaningless cycle.
We also see how Cronenberg manages to preserve his distinct voice and style as a director on big studio projects. All these subversive, unpleasant situations and ideas aren’t separate from reality. They’re part of everyday life. The audience recognises characters, understands their motivations, and empathises with their dark fantasies. Major studios and distributors can swallow a lot of out-there ideas if they’re wrapped around a human core.
Money also matters. Cronenberg’s movies tend to have modest budgets. This minimizes the risk for studios. A small bet on an ultimately unprofitable body horror movie trumps a big-budget misfire. Again, new filmmakers can learn from this.
Deforming Reality
1999 was a big year for cinema. The Matrix arrived, revolutionizing visual effects and taking sci-fi storytelling into a new digital dimension. It also featured its fair share of Cronenberg-esque body horror elements. And the man himself had his own take on VR the same year.
Critically and commercially, eXistenZ fell well short of the Wachowskis’ blockbuster. He made it for $15 million, and it made $5.5 million. But all these years later, they offer an interesting contrast in how they treat the body. Or more precisely, how the body engages with reality.
The Matrix makes the body a vessel for the mind. Technology enslaves the body, but the mind can break free. Primitiveness and progress are at war. We’re supposed to root for the rebels.
Meanwhile, eXistenZ puts us in the shoes of the establishment. Weirdly organic game pods provide VR experiences, connecting umbilically to players’ spines. One of the game’s designers gets drawn into the layered worlds she has created. Anti-VR rebels want her dead. The plot twists and turns, leaving us unsure about who’s the player and who gets played.
From a production perspective, it’s another low-risk option. The budget was a fraction of The Matrix’s $63 million. Cronenberg’s film flopped, but he thought about what he wanted to say just as much as the Wachowskis. This interview about the film’s ideas and writing process proves that:
Who Are We?
Many threads run through David Cronenberg’s filmography. Knit them together, and one question remains. Who are we?
Are we the technology we’ve created, and the abusive relationship we’ve entered into with it? Are we the primitive desires that drive us? Are we our bodies, and do we control them, or are we at the mercy of unfeeling biology?
One of the joys of Cronenberg’s work is that he doesn’t insist on answering any of these. Enjoy his films purely as subversive and exploitative, or get philosophical about them. It’s up to you. Compared to David Lynch, they’re far more accessible.
The one sure thing we learn from most movies in the Cronenberg canon is that we’re sexual beings. Most directors, even in horror, shy away from the ickier aspects of sex. In Friday the 13th (1980), it’s an excuse for violence against young camp workers. Elsewhere in the genre, it’s a punchline. In A History of Violence and Videodrome, it’s a core part of who we are.
Who we are also comes from who we build ourselves up to be. We tell the world one thing with our behavior in public. Our past and our actions in private can say quite different things. Crucially, both sides can be our true selves. It’s an idea screenwriter Josh Olsen explores in A History of Violence, and it gels with Cronenberg’s career-long obsession with identity.
In a sense, body horror makes us part of something bigger. We smash ourselves together, make love to technology, invade each other’s minds, and meld with nature. Reproduction and procreation are represented in every human act, no matter how advanced. It’s messy, but it’s also how we survive.
What Comes Next & What Filmmakers Can Learn
David Cronenberg still puts body horror on display, 50 years after making it his calling card. Most recently, 2024’s The Shroud was a very personal project. Influenced by his wife’s death, the film doesn’t flinch from exploring the pain of a loved one’s passing. It considers what happens to the body after we die, how we let go, or how we cling on. And of course, there’s technology that lets you watch corpses decompose. Even in old age, he hasn’t lost his macabre sense of humor.
For aspiring independent filmmakers, there’s something inspirational about Cronenberg’s career. He managed to make his mark and stick to his guns in terms of style and storytelling. Box office success wasn’t always there. But his artistic integrity never faltered.
Perhaps most relevantly, some of his weirder works got made and distributed by major studios. Modest budgets and a focus on practical effects over expensive CGI made this possible. Execs trust that there’s the potential for a good return on an investment in his projects. Even with commercial failures, critics pay attention. That gives the films life beyond the cinema.
So, if you can say something meaningful and do it efficiently, there’s room for indie cinema sensibilities in the mainstream.
